During conventional dental maintenance and treatment procedures, dentists and dental technicians arc required to perform tasks using instruments which require periodic servicing. Such instruments are commonly used in the context of dental cleaning and polishing, a procedure which involves the removal or debris from a patient's teeth. The principle instruments employed during this procedure include a dental scraper (which is used to scrape debris from a patient's teeth) and a dental polisher (which polishes the patient's teeth using a medicament such as prophylactic paste). Both of these instruments require the periodic removal of debris which collects during use on a given patient, the dental polisher (paste applicator) further requiring the periodic application or a dosage of paste.
In the past, these servicing junctions have been accomplished with the aid of an assistant, the assistant generally being given the tedious task of holding a cloth on which the instruments may be wiped, or holding a container which carries the prophylactic paste. This arrangement, however, represents a waste of valuable time, the efforts of two professionals being used where the efforts of one professional would suffice. One alternative has been to simply place the cloth and paste on a tray where they may be accessed by the dentist or technician without the aid of an assistant. Not surprisingly, this arrangement also leads to a waste of time, the dentist or technician being required to pick up the cloth or paste each time an instrument is to be serviced. Another alternative involves the use of finger-mounted prophylactic paste holder units, but such units generally are single-purpose appliances which do nothing more than hold prophylactic paste. Known paste holders do not address the need for cleaning appliances, the dentist or technician instead being required to rely on an assistant or on the ability to place such an appliance on a nearby tray. What is needed is a more complete servicing system which may be mounted to the user's hand.